Habsburg dynasty ............................. H
A royal dynasty whose members became
the hereditary rulers of the Holy Roman
Empire, and held authority over the larg-
est realm in Europe during the Renais-
sance. The Habsburgs originated in Swa-
bia, a duchy of southwestern Germany. In
1246 they took control of the duchy of
Austria. In the late thirteenth century, Ru-
dolf I became the first of the line to be
elected as Holy Roman Emperor; he passed
this title on to his son Albert I. In 1438,
Albert II succeeded to the title, followed
by Frederick III. A capable ruler with a
wide education, Frederick consolidated
Habsburg rule in Germany, expanded the
domain to the east, and signed the Con-
cordat of Vienna with Pope Nicholas V, an
agreement that allowed the Habsburgs
some independence from the control of
the church. At this time, the ideas of the
Italian humanists were starting to arrive in
northern Europe. Frederick named an Ital-
ian scholar, Enea Silvio Piccolomini, as his
secretary and then as official poet laureate.
The Habsburg rulers were skilled in
enlarging their domains through marriage
agreements. Frederick engaged his son
Maximilian to Mary of Burgundy, heir to
the prospering duchy of Burgundy. A well-
educated man and skillful diplomat, Maxi-
milian was a patron of the arts, literature,
and scholarship at his court in Vienna. He
defended Burgundy against the French and
founded the Holy League, an alliance of
the Holy Roman Empire with the pope,
Venice, Milan, and Spain to fight the at-
tempted French conquest of Italy. He ex-
pelled a Hungarian army from Vienna and
brought Bohemia within the Habsburg
lands through marriage arrangements.
Maximilian’s grandson Charles inher-
ited the throne of Spain as well as the title
of Holy Roman Emperor. A devout Catho-
lic, Charles fought against the Protestant
Reformation, which was supported by Ger-
man princes who sought independence
from Habsburg control. In 1527, when re-
bellious troops sacked Rome and took
Pope Clement VII as a prisoner, Charles
soon restored the pope to his throne.
Charles defeated a French army and King
Francis I at the Battle of Pavia in 1525,
and fought off an assault by the Ottoman
Turks on Vienna in 1529. In 1549, he de-
feated the Protestant Schmalkaldic League
at the Battle of Mühlberg. Unable to re-
turn the German territories to Catholi-
cism, however, he agreed to the Peace of
Augsburg in 1555, allowing the German
princes to establish the religion of their
choice in their own domains.
The immense empire ruled by Charles
V—the largest since the time of Charle-
magne—posed a serious problem regard-
ing succession. Rivalries for land and au-
thority within the Habsburg family were
intense. Charles finally arranged for his
brother Ferdinand to inherit the imperial
throne, which would then pass to Philip,
Charles’s son. Weary of his heavy respon-
sibilities, Charles abdicated in 1555; three
years later Ferdinand was crowned em-
peror. Philip inherited the Netherlands,